- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (24 Sept. 2019)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1526614960
- ISBN-13: 978-1526614964
Synopsis
Danny Conroy grows up in the Dutch House, a lavish mansion. Though his father is distant and his mother is absent, Danny has his beloved sister Maeve: Maeve, with her wall of black hair, her wit, her brilliance. Life is coherent, played out under the watchful eyes of the house’s former owners in the frames of their oil paintings.
Then one day their father brings Andrea home. Though they cannot know it, her arrival to the Dutch House sows the seed of the defining loss of Danny and Maeve’s lives. The siblings are drawn back time and again to the place they can never enter, knocking in vain on the locked door of the past. For behind the mystery of their own exile is that of their mother’s: an absence more powerful than any presence they have known.
Review
Ever since reading Bel Canto I have been a fan of Ann Patchett’s writing so was excited to receive a copy of The Dutch House to read. Danny and Maeve grow up in the beautiful Dutch House in Pennsylvania. The house maybe perfect, but their lives are not. Their mother left when Danny was three, and their father is distant and rarely there so it is Maeve, seven years older than Danny, to take on a maternal role. This all changes when their father brings Andrea into the house and Danny and Maeve find themselves displaced, and end up on the outside looking in. Both are drawn back, wondering about their mother’s absence and their own rejection. Beautifully written this book is about love, loss, family and the power of the past on the present.
The Dutch House is a character driven book focusing on Danny and Maeve, as we follow them from childhood through to adulthood and the reader is a voyeur to how the absence of their mother and the introduction of Andrea effects their lives. The other main character is the house itself; a magnet that continually draws Danny and Maeve back. Danny is the narrator of this book and the plot moves back to their childhood in the house and how it changed when Andrea moved in, and to the times in their lives when they sit in Maeve’s car outside the Dutch House looking in whilst looking back at their past and wondering about their mother. I was very much reminded of a fairytale in that there is the ‘wicked’ stepmother who puts her own children ahead of her stepchildren who find themselves usurped and on the outside, only able to watch from a distance.
What really comes through in this book is Maeve’s sacrifice and care for her younger brother. She is the one who assumes care of Danny when he has nowhere to go and pushes his eduction at the expense of her own life, partly to get her own back at Andrea. Maeve is the most hurt by her mother’s absence as she is the one who remembers her, but doesn’t know why she left. Meave had to grow up fast, take care of her brother which results in her being fiercely independent, refusing to conform to the expectations of others and very loyal to Danny. Danny is the opposite to Maeve in that he does conform and goes to study medicine even though he doesn’t want to be a doctor. He has two strong women in his life, Maeve and his wife Celeste, both of whom mould his life and control him to an extent. Then there is the house, with it’s glass hallway, ballroom and portraits of the original owners the VanHoeBeek’s still in situ. The Dutch House is a house that owns its inhabitants, and is the anchor to which Maeve and Danny cling, draws them back throughout their lives, as they contemplate the past, present and future.
The Dutch House is wonderful read with strong characters whose lives become our own as we read the book. I took both Maeve and Danny to my heart as they faced life’s obstacles, and felt love, loss, forgiveness and faced it all together. I fell in love with The Dutch House as a book and as a character, the emotion it elicited and it’s magnetic pull on Maeve and Danny, a place for them to confront their past and their future. A stunning, poignant and thought provoking read, and one I highly recommend.
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